South Island Trip – Queenstown to Aoraki/Mount Cook
Our chance for a helicopter flight over Aoraki/Mount Cook on the last day of 2020 was dependent on getting to the airfield before noon. Weeks earlier, Michael had booked a 2:30 p.m. heli-tour, but on [...]
South Island Trip – Milford Sound to Queenstown
Michael outside our chalet at Milford Sound Lodge, with the remnants of our continental breakfast Milford Sound Lodge offered guests a continental breakfast as long as it was ordered the night before. Because [...]
South Island Trip – Invercargill to Milford Sound
After we consumed our in-room breakfast of yogurt and instant oatmeal, we deposited our key cards at the unattended desk of the Quest Serviced Apartments (leaving our dirty dishes and linens for the invisible servicers) [...]
South Island Trip – Stewart Island
To adhere to our schedule for the day, we had to finish breakfast by 8:15 so we could get to the ferry terminal in Bluff, about 30 kilometres south of Invercargill, in time to catch [...]
South Island Trip – Dunedin to Invercargill
When Michael planned the schedule for this trip, he did not include attendance at a formal church service on the itinerary for Sunday 27 December, assuming that we could hold an informal devotional and gospel [...]
South Island Trip – Christchurch to Dunedin
Christchurch's beautiful Avon River Having consumed an expensive, mediocre Christmas dinner in the hotel’s dining room because we had no other choice, we weren’t interested in an expensive, mediocre Boxing Day breakfast in [...]
South Island Trip: Hamilton to Christchurch
We began Christmas Day 2020 the same way we have begun almost every other day of 2020: we went for a walk around our neighborhood. We did not sleep in. We had no need to [...]
Christmastime in New Zealand
We probably should add an FAQ page to this blog, because we tend to get the same questions over and over: How do you like New Zealand? What do Church History Missionaries do? Can you [...]
Ruapane Lookout
Route to the parking lot About mid-morning on 17 August, Barry called to let us know that Eva was not feeling well, so we would be on our own for a Monday outing. [...]
The PS Rangiriri and Hayes Paddock
In the 1860s, in the midst of the Land Wars between the Māori Kīngitanga (Kingmen) and those loyal to the British Crown, the colonial government commissioned a gunboat that was specially designed to navigate narrow, [...]